As reported in L’Orient Today, “the Beirut Port explosion claimed the lives of 235 people, injured more than 7,000 others and destroyed a significant part of the capital. Five years later, those responsible for the explosion — which involved huge amounts of ammonium nitrate improperly stored at the port — still have not been brought to justice” (https://tinyurl.com/yn5hprk5).
After coming across the short YouTube N video below, Bambi was curious about Lebanon’s new Justice Minister who seems to be sincere in his expressed feelings towards the families of the victims of the Beirut port explosion of August 4, 2020. She found his impressive bio on 961: https://tinyurl.com/ptsrn86h.
Sincere or not, five years after the Beirut explosion, will Beirut residents—and lovers— ever know the facts? Will anyone be held responsible for this surreal tragedy?
The picture to the left was taken from Mr. Ziad Rahbani’s Instagram page. May his memory be eternal.
Upon waking up, Bambi read the news from Lebanon and the Middle East. She was shocked to learn about the death of Mr. Ziad Rahbani (69) due to a heart attack.
It is hard to say good-bye to a Lebanese musical genius—composer, pianist, singer, and a play writer—, even if we know that his artistic legacy is eternal. Indeed, a piece of Lebanon, and of our collective past—especially during civil war—is gone with him.
May God knows how to comfort his mom’s heart. the legendary Fairuz ❤️. Same for his surviving siblings, including his sister Rima, and all his loved ones: former spouse, Rahbani family members, friends, fans, and “comrades” to use a language he might have liked.
On a personal note, for several weeks starting from the past winter, Bambi kept singing Mr. Rahbani’s beautiful “Ayshi Wahda Balak” [She is living without you] out loud. For instance, she heard herself doing this while working late, cleaning, and/or doing puzzles. Today, she wants to honour Mr. Rahbani by sharing his song below (the first one).
To conclude this tribute, along with your mom and siblings, Lebanon and its diaspora will have to learn to live without you, Mr. Ziad Rahbani. May your memory be eternal. Thank you for having enriched Lebanon and the world of music. Thanks for having composed songs and written plays on key causes like poverty, war absurdity, and on romantic love.
The video shared below was taken and posted by Ms Rania Berbery on her Instagram account yesterday: https://tinyurl.com/yeezps3k. Isn’t it stunning?
If you are curious, this is the view from the “Jroud el Batroun” area North of Beirut. Rania captured the magical sunset moments and dedicated them to love. Bravo and thanks to her for having accepted to share her video with us all.
As both her sister and maid of honour, Bambi wishes Rania and Rabih a wonderful wedding anniversary! She had a wonderful time with them in the spring-early summer ❤️. May beauty, love, healing, justice, accountability, peace, and prosperity prevail in their/our beautiful Lebanon.
As for Katia, Bambi is blessed to call her “friend” for thirty-four-years. It is her hope to one day see her visit Lebanon to enjoy its beauty. With much love ❤️, Happy birthday to her!
This story is too sad and unacceptable, especially if the requested external (or independent) investigation will confirm discrimination. In case you have not read about it yet, and if you wish, you can consult French media reports about it in both English and French (https://tinyurl.com/cz47cryz; nyurl.com/47e3edk9).
In sum, a French “holiday camp filed a legal complaint against Spanish airline Vueling over the expulsion of French Jewish teenagers from a Paris-bound flight“. The holiday camp organizers, the adolescents themselves, and some parents seem to report the following: the 50 young passengers, along with their summer camp counsellors, were forced off the plane in a psychologically degrading—and even physically violent—way. It seems that the latter took place after one of the adolescents of the group had sung a song in Hebrew, as reported by some parents (https://tinyurl.com/cz47cryz; nyurl.com/47e3edk9). Let’s keep in mind that they were returning home from vacation. So they must have still been in an excited or happy mood.
Of note, the airline company “crew requested the intervention of the Civil Guard police force” ( (https://tinyurl.com/cz47cryz; nyurl.com/47e3edk9). Wow. In Indian media, we can see a shocking picture or video of how the latter arrested a 21-year-old female counsellor of these teenagers—some of them were as young as 13 and even 12. The company claimed that it was because she refused to leave the airplane. It also claimed that the adolescents’ behaviour was disrupting (https://tinyurl.com/55hm6rp7).
Of course, we do not know all the facts yet, only the two sides of the story. Nevertheless, this saga is sad regardless of antisemitism or not or disrupting teen behaviour or not. Indeed, it is highly disturbing for different reasons, including humanity in general, human and passenger rights specifically, customer service, adolescent education, and human behaviour, namely civility or what looks like unmeasured use of violence.
To conclude on a musical note as usual, Bambi will allow herself to offer the “Hava Nagila” famous song to Vueling. Of course, it is in Hebrew and it is sung by a HIGHLY talented girl from Uzbekistan. Her name is Sofiya Fadeeva. Bless her voice!
Bambi is not a legal expert. However, she knows how to recognize what looks like judicial harassment. Indeed, it is both sad and unacceptable to read about what is happening to Ms. Tamara Lich and Mr. Chris Barber for having co-organized the “Freedom Convoy“, which opened the country after its excessive Covid-19 pandemic-related measures. Instead of either thanking them or letting them finally live peacefully, they have been accused with “mischief” in a trial that has dragged for too long.
Today, we learned of new development. Because of “mischief”, the Crown is asking for 8 years of jail for him and 7 for her. Can you imagine?!
Of note, mischief usually refers to reckless or intentional damage or interference with someone’s property. For example, this may refer to actions like blocking a street or vandalism of someone’s property with graffiti. In Canada, mischief rarely leads to jail time. Thus, the Crown request appears more unfair, and even absurd, when some criminals, including rapists, got out of jail earlier, or received no jail at all (https://tinyurl.com/335v4tmt).
As a quick flash-back into the past, at the time the freedom convoy took place, Bambi had several posts on the topic. It was dear to her heart because she is grateful to Canada’s truck drivers for the food she can purchase. She also had other related posts that you can see further below.
To support the “freedom convoy” movement across Canada, Bambi went to an exit on the highway, near her small town, to salute Maritime truck drivers before they started their long drive to Ottawa where they demanded the end of the excessive pandemic measures. Their request was reasonable and they were peaceful.
Of course, as expressed on this blog, Bambi had a thought for Ottawa citizens as she imagined that truck honking might result in auditory stress and maybe headaches for some of them. However, does honking justify 7 and 8 years in jail as the court is requesting for the co-organizers? If so, maybe we should put the entire population of some countries, like Bambi’s birth place, in jail permanently because Lebanese drivers use car horns a lot (i.e., when they see a loved one, at weddings, when upset, for no reason, etc.).
As a reminder, Ottawa evoked the Emergencies Act without much justification. In 2024, Federal Court ruled that “not only it wasn’t justified, it infringed on Charter rights” (https://tinyurl.com/2pewnaw7).
Ms. Lich was in the Ottawa court house today. Mr. Barber could not make it as he lost one parent. May the latter’s soul rest in peace. To support Ms. Lich, a mother and a grandmother, Bambi just bought her book entitled “Hold The Line: My story from the heart of the Freedom Convoy“. She is also considering making a donation for legal support, if this is an option.
Silencing Ms. Lich and Mr. Barber, by throwing them in jail, is silencing all Canadians. As Bambi had repeated many times on her blog, freedom of expression should be defended as a principle for ALL. This includes Ms. Lich and Mr. Barber.To cite Ms. Lich’s lawyer Mr. Lawrence Greenspon sharp and wise words, “freedom of expression should win every time” (https://tinyurl.com/4xzzvjn9). Is this too much to ask for in today’s Canada and world?
Dr. Joseph Facal’ s column is entitled “À Ottawa, le délire multiculturaliste ne se repose jamais” [In Ottawa, the multiculturalist delirium never rests]. The federal program it informed us about was found by one of his readers. Thanks to her, and if you wish, you can consult this program here in both English and French: https://shorturl.at/ytVEj. Of note, the “Kosher and Halal Investment Program” is a “$25-million contribution funding program over 2 fiscal years“.
Of course, Canadians are free to eat any diet they wish, whether out of religious beliefs or not. They are also free to follow heath diets, if they like it, or even regularly celebrate the “National Junk Food Day”, which was yesterday by the way (https://tinyurl.com/yc683286 ). This is not the point of Dr. Joseph Facal’s column. His point is simple: why should our tax dollars fund this program? And why did Ottawa create such program in the first place? Why is the government promoting, or interfering, in people’s religious habits? This is a strictly private choice.
Below you can find an English translation of Dr. Joseph Facal’s thoughtful article published yesterday in the Journal de Montréal (https://tinyurl.com/bdzymns5). Thanks to Mr. Google Translate for assisting Bambi in its translation into English for you, dear readers:
“Observant Jews and Muslims follow a few dietary rules dictated by their religious beliefs.
This set of rules is generally referred to as “kosher” for the former and “halal” for the latter, meaning “permitted” because it conforms to religious doctrine.
The most well-known are refusal to eat pork and the consumption of meat from an animal whose slaughter has followed a certain ritual.
No!
Honestly, it doesn’t bother me much, as long as the freedom of others is respected.
After all, there was a time when many Catholics abstained from meat on Fridays and fasted during Lent.
Today, vegetarians and vegans also have eating habits based on beliefs that are not my own, but which are legitimate and respectable.
But should the state encourage and even subsidize the production of meat that conforms to Jewish and Islamic religious precepts?
Should my tax money be used to finance an increase in the production of kosher and halal meat?
In Canada, the answer is apparently yes, since that’s exactly what the federal government is doing.
A reader drew my attention to a very discreet program run by the federal Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food to invest public funds in the production of kosher and halal red meat. You can find here .
The program is aimed at private companies already engaged in this type of production or those wishing to start.
The aim is to help the slaughterhouses concerned “increase their efficiency.”
The funds can be used to purchase the necessary equipment (conveyors, cutting tools, blades, etc.) or to hire a consultant to assist them.
Eligible projects could receive up to $2 million in government assistance per applicant.
Eligible costs would be shared 50-50 between the government and the contractor.
Ottawa will accept applications until September 1, 2026.
The total cost of the program is $25 million, spread over two fiscal years (2025-2026 and 2026-2027).
The problem here, I repeat, is not kosher or halal production or consumption, or consumption based on any other conviction.
Nor, obviously, is the problem with faith and religious practice lived with respect for others.
The problem is the use of your money and mine to encourage ethno-religious communitarianism.
Secularism
But of course, we are in Canada, the only one of these countries to have embraced the multiculturalist doctrine, which today refuses to see its disastrous consequences and to back down.
Mark Carney seems determined in this regard to be the successor to Justin Trudeau, himself a zealous executor of this disastrous ideology long ago introduced by his father.
Meanwhile, Québec, with the half-powers of a half-state, is striving to establish secularism as the philosophy underlying the relationship between the state and its citizens.
The picture of Investigative Judge Tarek Bitar, head of the Criminal Court in Beirut, was taken from several older posts and initially from Naharnet.
From Naharnet citing the National News Agency, Bambi learned the following: “Former public works and transport minister Ghazi Zoaiter on Friday failed to appear before Beirut port blast investigator Judge Tarek Bitar… Zoaiter’s lawyer Samer al-Hajj, however, attended the session… and “Former state prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat had on Thursday refused to receive a subpoena summoning him to interrogation before Bitar on July 21…” (https://tinyurl.com/yc52byf7).
Although not that surprised by the above, and without being an expert in criminal law, Bambi wonders about any legal consequences of contempt of court in a civil law country like Lebanon, interestingly by another judge.
Of note, in Canada, and if she is not mistaken, the punishment of court contempt may be a fine or even imprisonment, in addition to possibly “paying the costs that are incident to the service of any process under this Part and to his detention, if any” (https://tinyurl.com/ef9m8drs).
Regardless of any legal implications, what about moral responsibility?
In Canada, and elsewhere in the world, like in Germany, there seems to have been gaps in measles vaccination which have lead to repeated outbreaks of the disease (https://shorturl.at/0jOlI).
Measles in also called rubeola or “rougeole” in French. According to Mayo Clinic, this disease, which “was once a common childhood illness“, is “caused by a virus that spreads easily through the air and settles on surfaces. A vaccine can prevent measles infection” (https://shorturl.at/YveqP).
Bambi got curious about this outbreak currently observed in her province of New Brunswick, she googled information from the other Canadian provinces/territories. She started with Québec, of course in the French language. However, after reading the latter, she immediately searched the English translation. No, it was not because of medical information, but of rather the odd linguistics: in Québec, women do not exist at all on the government website when it comes to measles. Indeed, they are called “personnes enceintes”. Mmm, how did Québec bureaucrats translate this in English, she wondered. Yes, as you could guess, it is “pregnant people” (https://shorturl.at/lE3eK).
Well, for those who do not know it, Bambi had been pregnant—and miscarried—three times in her life. In all those short yet significant periods in her lifetime, she was a “pregnant woman”. Indeed, she was NOT a pregnant person or individual.
As Québec-based journalist Sophie Durocher argued well, the new language that excludes the word “women” is meant to erase the specificity of women from the public space. Indeed, Ms. Durocher denounced this trend in her book entitled “Où sont les femmes? L’effacement du féminin dans l’espace public” [in English, “Where Are the Women? The Erasure of the Feminine in Public Space“] (https://shorturl.at/STtt5).
The above being said, let Bambi share with you the rest of the results of her quick Google search. In summary, it seems that women still exist in some ministries of heath, but not others and in one of our official languages, but not the other.
Indeed, although the English chosen word is mainly “people” and at times “individuals”, the French translation sometimes still includes the word “women” like in PEI as well as in Nunavut where pregnancy is experienced by “women” in French and “individuals” in English (https://shorturl.at/B452a). Interestingly, it is experienced by the “mères enceintes” [meaning “pregnant mothers”] in Newfoundland and Labrador (https://shorturl.at/bxkBm).
Of note, the Alberta government website, and not just the information about measles, is translated into 16 languages, including English and French. In English, although the term “individuals” is used, it seems to be accurate English grammar and also describes other categories of individuals at risk. In other terms, it does not seem to be meant as being “pregnant individuals” (https://shorturl.at/U7R3U). To confirm this, Bambi double-checked other governmental sources.
Last but not least, and thank Goodness, the woke jargon does not seem to have reached Manitoba (https://shorturl.at/Gc60z), in English as well as French, and the Northwest Territories yet. Indeed, there the English only government website still uses the term “pregnant women”. Thanks to these Canadian province and territory!
To conclude this post, perhaps you are a reader who happens to be a mother and/or a daughter, how do you feel about not being publicly called a woman anymore? Does it bother you or you do not care? Do you feel kinder or more welcoming/inclusive toward a very tiny minority of trans men (who kept their uterus!) and thus delivered? Bambi cannot help not to think of Mr. Rafi Daugherty, from Denver, USA. Proudly, in 2016, he expressed the following after the birth of his child: “I am a single transgender man having my first baby,” it read. “I use he/him/his pronouns and will be called ‘Abba’ (Hebrew for father) by the baby. Papa, Dad, Daddy, Father…are also ok.” Congrats/Mazel Tov to him again and to his now 9-year-old child (https://tinyurl.com/4craw4jv)! Although Bambi hopes they are leading a happy life, she still prefers to be called “woman” by her government!
Bambi does not understand what triggered the latest horror of sectarian violence in Syria (https://shorturl.at/oO0fb). She is not an expert of armed strife among groups or of airplane strikes by a third party to either protect a nearby territory and/or group. She just knows that she is sad to read about the volatile Middle East.
No one should be the target of violence. Everyone deserves to live peacefully while being treated with dignity and love, including the residents of Suwayda city. Same for all their fellow Syrians living elsewhere.
This being said, and if she may, she will now offer Mr. Nicola Ciconne’s song “Nous serons six milliards” [We Will Be Six Billion] to the Syrian people and to all the populations of the troubled Middle East. The lyrics of this meaningful song, taken from one of her older posts, appear below following the song…
While the Québec flag was at half-mast outside of the Québec National Assembly, Mr. Serge Fiori’s national funeral took place at the Place-des-Arts in Montreal in collaboration with his family.
The ceremony consisted of a very beautiful 1.5-hour-long musical tribute, prepared in nine days only, filled with LOVE, talent, and deeply moving moments. Bambi took the time to follow it live on YouTube. She had tears in her eyes at several key moments while listening to Mr. Fiori’s close friends who honoured him. A particularly moving moment was when family members placed his ashes in the middle of the stage, next to his guitar. They also placed seven candles on stage. Bambi enjoyed each performance of Mr. Fiori’s peers, especially at the end of the ceremony when the audience stood up and everyone sang together “On a mis quelqu’un au monde, on devrait peut-être l’écouter“. Of note, Ms. Céline Dion participated in this touching moment by video.
Interestingly, Mr. Fiori had a great sense of humour and he was generous. For instance, he used to play the guitar on his balcony for pedestrians who stopped on the street to greet him. Another cute moment took place in Chicoutimi where Mr. Michel Barrette happened to be the only person in the audience during the rehearsal of a night show with Fiori’s group Harmonium. Mr. Barrette, in his early twenties then, got excited after the first song ended. When he applauded, Mr. Fiori asked him about his name. He kindly invited him to the show and to the lodge to have a beer with his group after the show. Wow! Thirty years later, they bumped into each other. They recalled the incident with humour and later even became friends.
As Mr. François Legault phrased it, Mr. Serge Fiori was “a musical genius” who made Québeckers proud. Indeed, what a highly talented and patriotic artist. What a loving man, human being, mentor (father!), and friend to so many Québeckers across generations.
Of note, Canadian politicians at all levels of government—federal, provincial/territorial, and municipal (federalists and sovereignists)— came together to pay tribute to Québec beloved “musical genius”, including his close friend Mr. Régis LaBaume. A federal politician, Mr. Pablo Rodriguez, told a reporter that he used to play his songs on his guitar. Mr. Serge Fiori unified everyone with his great music and beautiful lyrics. May his soul rest in peace. May his memory in heaven be as eternal as his phenomenal legacy on earth.
